Twice Unrequited: A Collection
by Dr. Q. Uirk
Summary: If both lovers' love is unrequited, then are they really in love or constrained by their longing? A Collection of Zevran stories detailing how an earring fostered love.
1. Twice Unrequited

_AN: I've some notion to make this into a multi-chapter if you guys feel so inclined to want more, but right now it remains a short story._

 _Enjoy._

Davinia sat in the firelight of the room. The last light of day wandered through the window pane and lost itself through the glass. It'd already died before it could stumble out the other side. It was only now, when twilight closed into the absence of night, that Davinia became her own woman. Music and voices wove stories of the tavern downstairs, but they ceased to pertain to Davinia once she'd stripped off the Warden's armor, which left only tangled thoughts and vague traces of traits that had once belonged to the girl she'd been in Highever. These things that preoccupied her also pulled her deep beneath their surface, and she sank into a solemn sea within herself until she blew out the candle for the night.

She sat, tonight, with her fingers in a reverent steeple against her voiceless lips and fixed glass eyes on dancing flames– the heat of which didn't warm her skin. When the door to her room creaked open on protesting hinges, Davinia too did not absorb this, although she had been aware of its occurrence.

The man who had entered paused briefly and looked at her troubled countenance, then quietly shut the door.

"La Belleza," he said quietly as he sealed the world back out, "I am surprised that you are still up. I usually come back to a less awake Davinia – who has already stolen off to the Fade. _Since_ you are up, would you perhaps like to hear a story?" he continued on to say after closing the door and on his way to the chest at the end of his bed, "Play a card game? Preferably versions where our clothes come off, but I'm up for anything."

His voice was as warm and gentle as the crackle of the fire in the hearth, and it dried the sea she was adrift in and pulled her back to the living shore he stood on. She turned herself from her bed to face him on his own – where he was taking off his armor - and smiled at him, but it did not span the gap between them to reach him the way his voice reached her.

"Aren't you taking your clothes off now, Zevran?" she rasped.

Zevran chuckled softly and pulled off his shoulder pads. "Ah! So I am! You don't miss a trick." He laughed again, but this time it was deep, dark, and alluring. "But I've never done it where you could see."

Davinia only returned the same aloof smile and shook her head. "You are naked in the same vicinity as I at least once a night. Is that not enough?"

"If a tree falls does it make a sound? As it goes, then am I naked if nobody sees me?"

When Davinia finally laughed, it sounded like ice cracking through a dead silence. Underneath all of those shelves there was still warm blood. And after ten years, with neither rhyme nor reason - other than a long drawn out concern - Zevran finally reached below her surface and grasped at her ruined heart.

"When you left on your quest to save Ferelden, I did not believe that you came back. It is heartening to be reminded that I'm wrong."

Davinia whipped around to Zevran. Alarm was clearly evident on her face, but upon regarding his naked torso framed in the firelight she turned away to the wall. But the rustle of Zevran's clothes had since grown into a stillness that augmented the empty crackling from the fireplace and the chatter downstairs. To answer him immediately with a rebuke was the Warden's first thought, but Davinia shut her mouth and spoke to the floor instead.

"Sometimes people have to be changed for the better."

Her voice ached with the pains of the girl inside yet unhealed, and Zevran's calloused hand closed tenderly on the bare skin of her arm. The place where he touched grew hot because of the entrapped heat, and she was aware of it in so many ways she couldn't have been before. And as you do when someone shows you unsolicited kindness, she felt all too much. The unrequited regrets of her past found their way to the present inconsolably despite the fact that they didn't belong there in that room, in that tavern, in Antiva, in the Warden she had been for so long. She felt the world pouring in, so she stemmed it by closing her hand over his.

"This is not change, Davinia," Zevran murmured lowly. She felt his thumb stroke down her skin underneath the palm of her hand, "this is grief, and it is swallowing you, and I— I am afraid you will succumb to it one day. I would not like to think that the woman I've come to call my friend could be lost to me one day. Selfish, I know – but nonetheless a tragedy."

Davinia swallowed hard and stared at the ground for a long span of time.

"Zevran, why don't you let me go to bed?" was what she finally whispered above the sound of her own heart pulsing in her ears.

"When Taliesin came for me, although you could not have stopped me from doing so, - you did not give me the option of running away. You faced me in front of my inevitable problem and the only way out you gave me was to clean it up. I will not let you run away from me now."

His voice held a firm edge in it, and the conviction behind it dug deep into her skin until it took strong root inside her and, after a second's pause, made her grab Zevran – who was still unclothed - firmly around the waist and haul him over the span of both of their beds into her arms. He squawked, and laughed, and teased, in that exact order, but eventually he settled quietly around her waist – where he encircled her with his legs – and she held him.

He smelled fresh in a familiar earthy way. He smelled like the road, and toil, and what was assumedly Antiva. It was a living scent, both reminiscent and full of unexplored promise, and bore an extraordinary resemblance to sliced cucumbers and leather. He smelled like Zevran – the closest thing to a dogged constant in her life – and therefore, quite strangely for how unbidden it was, like home.

Her nose brushed over his collarbone, and he buried his fingers into her tunic to keep ahold of reality, which was tenuously laid in that quiet room; the only solid thing was the two of them somehow holding each other now after sleeping at least ten feet apart for ten years.

Davinia's encircling arms rose to Zevran's back and pulled him into her tightly. When she pulled away she looked into Zevran's eyes and said with a voice that was rough and low, "You have been a good friend to me, Zevran. You have been more than I deserved of late."

"A—'friend.'" Zevran repeated suggestively, "Nothing more?"

A hint of humor danced across the corner of Davinia's mouth as she smirked up at him.

"My _best_ friend," she insisted cheekily.

Zevran laughed humorlessly. "My dear lady, I can understand being rebuffed, but I am naked on your lap."

" _Platonically_ naked on my lap, Zevran," she insisted again and bumped his rear with her knee, but despite the casual ease of her words a purpling blush spread clearly through her dark cheeks and dusted down the sides of her neck.

"You aren't still holding out on Alistair; are you?" he deadpanned.

When Davinia laughed again, it shook the both her chest and Zevran, and when she spoke – the sonorous depth of her voice rumbled against Zevran's stomach. "He'll come around someday. He'll be in court; bored and dreary. And he will realize that without me his life has been utterly empty, and he will jump to his feet in the middle of all of his dignitaries and proclaim his undying love to me and the mad desire to wed me at all costs. Yes. I await that day eagerly."

"Then, I must redouble my efforts to sit upon your lap in other ways, my Queen. You will need a dashing prince consort as well. Although," he remarked as though the idea had just occurred to him, "it would perhaps work better if you sat upon mine."

Davinia ignored the lewd suggestion and hummed at length with playfully narrowed eyes. "Bodyguard, I think."

"Oh?" Zevran drawled, "How about both?" he suggested dangerously. "The romance writes itself at this point. The Queen longing after the very man she trusts with her life, consumed with secret uncourtly lust, gazing at his round posterior when he walks in front of her. We're one for the romance epics, truly."

She hummed again and smiled at him in earnest. On an impulse that she did not seek to understand, her fingers reached up to touch Zevran's hair. It was not the first time, and it would not be the last – but time had robbed them of physical gestures of affection, which she had used to give indiscriminately to those she called her friends. With Zevran in particular, the gestures had become more endeared than what she spared for others through the years, so their absence was especially glaring – where _he_ was concerned. It felt again as it had used to when she caressed through his tangled blond hair still done up in its braids. Then some with some semantic descriptor that lies between "carefully" and "gently", she slid him from her lap to the space beside her on the bed. Again she turned her gaze to the floor to give him some measure of modesty. She somberly tucked a few loose strands of her own hair behind an ear and pulled Zevran's sheet from behind them, harassed and spilling onto the floor, from his bed into his lap without looking at him.

He chuckled softly at her reluctance, but she heard, saw, and felt the movements of him obligingly wrapping it around his lower body. "Why so shy, La Belleza? You never struck me as a woman who was uncomfortable with nudity," Zevran probed through amicable phrasing, "especially not just now."

Davinia glanced down prolongingly. An uncomfortable smile sat upon her lips. "I have never _really_ seen a man naked."

"Never?" Zevran asked dubiously.

"Pictures and the like of course, but not until I joined the Wardens, no. And even then, I was not in the habit of letting my eyes linger," she explained as she finally raked her eyes up to his face, "So I cannot say that I'm very acquainted with your—body, I suppose." Davinia reached over to pull Zevran's hand from his lap and shifted closer to him, "I am not uncomfortable with you Zevran," she continued lowly as though she were telling him her many secrets, "But I retain a fantasy of reserving some innocence for my husband, if there should be one." Davinia spread Zevran's fingers open and touched her own to the back of his hand for support, while her thumb held his wrist steady, so she could bush the fingers of her other hand over his palm. Callouses snagged at her thumb roughly.

"You Fereldans are so strange," he murmured as he watched her trace the deep lines.

When she was satisfied in discerning whatever mystery that Zevran's hands held, the hand that had been following lines in his palm blossomed open next to his. Zevran's hands were harder than when she had first met him. The tough skin was shaped to the handles of his daggers. They had a weathered flatness to them and were widened from vigorous and persistent bladework. Even his callouses were smooth. Her hands were much larger and easily looked as though they could break bones, despite the elegant build of her fingers. They were sturdier than Zevran's and yet more blistered and peeled where her gauntlets kicked harshly into the flesh.

She remembered vividly doing this in camp with Alistair when she had been a teenager and Zevran closer to thirty than forty. They would sit and compare the day's cuts with each other and then traced the imprinted scars of the journey yet passed. Their grubby fingers pressed clumsily into each other's palm. Sometimes there was ale or wine. They swigged then trickled the alcohol onto their spread blisters in a game of chicken - all the while lamenting the end of their youth only half-seriously into the low embers of the fire.

She saw more scars than raw lines now on her hand, even less on Zevran's cradled in her other.

"Not everybody could be raised by whores, Zevran. Who I bedded was very important, especially since my brother did not marry very politically."

"I understand political marriage – you've seen where I come from." She smiled wryly at that. "But nobility separates business from pleasure."

"And you say Fereldans are strange."

"Very."

"I used to get angry about not being able to undress with the guards despite training with them. I was very upset that I had so many burdens placed on my personal freedoms even though I bore them willingly." Davinia sighed.

"And what happened?"

"And I realized when my family died," she murmured, "that there were things worth holding on to from my old life. It's a personal desire that I keep for myself; I have so few these days."

"I have some regrets about my vapid indulgency," Zevran admitted and stretched his fingers against hers before dropping his hand. He chuckled darkly. "Not the sex. The sex was amazing, but I have some lament over doing it simply to not anticipate the next day or by thinking it somehow made me a better assassin. I feel… this discipline of yours has rubbed off on me, but it doesn't feel like discipline so much really. It seems more self-evaluative—"

"—Which you are nothing but."

"Is that sarcasm?"

"No."

So simple and serious was the answer that it could not be masqueraded as anything but the truth.

"Is it a good thing?" Zevran asked hesitantly.

A smile played on her lips. "Yes."

"Did I do something wrong?"

Her smile widened. "You were rambling."

Zevran scoffed. "It appears you are not the only one with a lot on your mind. All that I am trying to say is that I know what it is to rebuild a life. You know what kind of place I was in before."

Davinia's eyes softened heartfeltly. "'You can find your family in the people around you; you can love your work and find fulfillment in duty. There can be joy in sacrifice. If you put others before yourself, then their happiness is your happiness.'"

She had had a grand nonlinear point to make that would have connected Zevran's grief to hers and gently eased whatever burdens he carried over a love squandered and left to die in the dirt, if only for a little while. It would've been something he could perhaps water in the quiet moments of his life and eventually sprout into acceptance, but the Warden's wisdom lost its way to her mouth when an epiphany so strong covertly but violently overwhelmed her being. It had been her experience that things denied could very strongly ingrain themselves into someone until their personalities grew around the malformation and warped the wood. It had been her that had patiently cut the gnarls away from the companions that sought her over the long years, and so she had been so assured of her self-awareness that she thought she had had the foresight to divert her path before such thoughts became a part of her. She had been wrong. A keen longing stoked to life in her soul in the sudden presence of clarity that burned away the impurities of excuse, and denial, and sadness. All that was left was a realization that burned bright. Zevran's voice had to pull her back to where they sat.

"That's good advice until the whole portion about sacrifice. Where did you hear that?"

"Wynne actually," she answered bemusedly.

A shadow of disapproving surprise fell over Zevran's face, which was quickly overtaken by a well and truly evil smile. "Dear old Wynne, _mmm_?"

"Oh, Zevran," Davinia crooned sympathetically for Wynne's pain at Zevran's hands, despite her present distraction from the topic at hand.

Zevran smiled indulgently at what appeared to be a very self-satisfied memory playing before his eyes, which were tipping up to the ceiling with the corners of his Cheshire smile.

"Dear old Wynne with her _luscious_ titties."

"Zevran!" Davinia squawked and shoved at his arm.

He threw his head back and laughed. His whole body sagged onto on elbow between crows of heartless mirth, and Davinia was forced to scoot away at an odd angle to see him properly. Shadows lapped at his chest and jawline, even against the corners of his grin. His eyes glowed like burning amber in the firelight when he turned them on Davinia.

"You see? I've found your problem right there. You're listening to Wynne and her bags of air."

"Zevran—" Davinia groaned.

"—Ah, ah - no," Zevran cut her off as he propped himself higher, "Don't make yourself a slave to desire, Davinia; the Crows had controlled every aspect of my life until I met you. Let me just say that it's no way to live, especially since you have the option not to be such."

"It wasn't always like that."

Zevran raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"No, no – you're right, Zevran;" she shook her head, "I'm not doubting you, but it used to mean something different to me once. It meant learning to love your life, rather than dwelling on your hardships. It meant, to me, finding solace in the companion who would be at my side, my best friend. Because it meant that though my road would be hard, it would never be alone."

"And then?"

Davinia gazed openly at Zevran's amused if impassive face for a while longer, and she wondered again if this guarded state of existence wasn't natural for him. He painted a heart on his sleeve and spoke in subtext, and while she didn't wish for cloying sentimentality from him, she was constantly scrutinized, although not unpleasantly, in his presence. He coaxed details from her with his clever mouth because he was mistrustful of the Warden to show him her heart of her own accord.

"And then—I got jaded," she finally explained after a while. "You don't need to ask, Zevran. You offered to soothe my pain more than once."

"Did I? Oh, yes," He smirked and his eyes twinkled mischeviously. "You needed a little bit of fun, but I only offered the massage once; I don't know where you're getting your notions of there being another time."

"The sex poetry."

He sniggered nostalgically and wiggled his eyebrows. "All in good fun, mi Amor. I think it's always good to cast one's burdens aside. One need not dwell, like you said."

She read his subtext and the impartings in his eyes. "Thank you, Zevran."

"You're welcome. You've given me much useful advice over the years, yes? I am only happy to return the favor. And also, Davinia, I—"

Zevran tipped his head and looked at her gaugingly. The gesture, the sweet torture of his hesitation held so much weight behind it that wings tickled the walls of Davinia's stomach in anticipation for his words. She looked at the assassin. Really looked at _him_. He had been an experience for her when they had first met. It had been almost indecent the way she had been drawn to him, but she had never been particularly interested in infatuation and bid her time in better places. Zevran had lost his appeal along the way when he'd become just a man, although a man very close to her heart.

But desire snagged Davinia's stomach again, and she really couldn't just say it was because of the sheet. (That, rather, embodied how intimate she'd felt with him through years on the road together). She realized in that second that she wanted him to say something that would make her feel sublime and novel. It was a powerful swell of longing drudged out by the sequential thoughts that, once unearthed, dragged one out after the other from the muck her self-imposed solitude had sealed them in.

"—Yes?" Davinia interrupted Zevran quickly before he could decide whether he still wanted to keep to his train of thought or not.

He raised his eyes so that he looked at her under his lashes. "Eager are we? I had something I wanted to give you after—after everything, but I didn't find that I had the heart to do it when you were so—"

"-Up my own ass?"

He chuckled quietly. "Not quite the words I would have used. 'Upset', maybe?"

Zevran's comfortable weight then left the bed, and Davinia didn't realize she'd missed it until it was gone. The sheet swathed around his hips bustled out behind him almost elegantly, if one pretended it did so. She smiled at it as Zevran bent over the chest at the end of his bed and rummaged for a length of time that Davinia used to spread out over her own bed. The silence was comfortable between them. The room was warm, strains of a melancholic song drifted up from the tavern that murmured and stuttered melodically in Antivan, and her heart beat palpably close to the surface of her chest.

Finally Zevran scooped what he was looking for into his hands and paced back to Davinia on the bed – where he perched beside her.

"Here. Better late than never, as they say," he chuckled, and it sounded suspiciously nervous for the swaggering assassin. No matter the tone of his voice, his fingers opened to reveal a spark of fire in his palm. It was only through closer inspection and looking past the crystalline reflections of the dancing fire that one saw it was an elaborate drop of diamonds crusted over an emerald inlaid earring.

"Oh?" Davinia choked on trying to sound playfully nonchalant. "Will that mean we're married in Antiva?" she managed to say very breathily.

Zevran's laugh seemed half-caught between surprise and delight. "Let's hope not. I acquired it on my very first job for the Crows," he said as he looked at Davinia's wide eyes that reflected the earring's dazzling fire, "A Rivaini merchant prince," he explained smoothly, "and he was wearing a single jeweled earring when I killed him. In fact," he paused wantonly, "that was about all he was wearing. I thought it was beautiful and took it to mark the occasion; I've kept it since." He paused thoughtfully for a second then, but so inconspicuously one might have missed it, the rest of his words then poured quickly and eagerly from his lips. "And I'd like you to have it."

"It's—beautiful, Zevran," Davinia finally said in the very pregnant pause between them, "but why?" she asked guardedly. It had been abrupt to find herself endeared to Zevran, and although she was not opposed to pursuing him, she was wary of what it might bring. There were politics between them underlying the moments of intense intimacy. Too many things had been left unsaid for so long, and for so long she had neither felt so much nor so indulgently.

"Don't get the wrong idea about it; besides it matching your eyes, I had wanted to give it to you for freeing me from my gilded bonds, and I offer it now for how much you've continued to give me. Feel free to sell it, wear it, whatever you like; it's yours," he explained in his very practical way and proffered it forward once more, "It's really the least I could give you in return for all that you've done for me."

 _I take my pleasures where I can find them_ , purred uninvited through her head at the practiced detachment in his voice, and she nearly shuddered. She possessed none of Zevran's winking tolerance for love, and so she would be forthright when presented with what she wanted without cynicality.

"So," Davinia quipped; her voice danced on light toes. "not…" She paused and deliberately fixed her eyes on Zevran's. "…a token of affection then?"

"I—" Zevran's mask cracked, and his eyebrows arched in an all too vulnerable way, "—Look," he tried again, "just—just take it; i-it's meant a lot to me, but so have—" Davinia found nuances of denial in the way the assassin sharply sucked in breath to stopper his clumsy flow of words. "-so has what you've done," he finished lamely. Davinia's eyebrows arched fraught with unapologetic disbelief. "Please, take it," Zevran pleaded softly with them.

"Aren't you naked in my bed Zevran?" she pressed.

Zevran's eyes flashed in the firelight again when he looked away from her. " _Platonically_ naked, I thought we established." He punctuated the forcedly friendly statement with an equally unconvincing laugh. "I may flirt with you, La Belleza, but most of it is in good fun, and while it is also no secret that I find you appealing... You're _usually -_ " He looked at her pointedly. "- _not_ of a mind however. I don't see what has changed."

"Maybe you've awakened something in me," she deadpanned in jest but leaned forward into the cusp of Zevran's personal space and focused intently on his bright whiskey eyes, as if to take another draught, "I'll only take it if it means something, my Crow."

Zevran's eyes cut, like glass, in the gleaming firelight, and his mouth twisted bitterly underneath sharply pointed eyebrows had had broken through his air of restraint. "You are a very frustrating woman to deal with," the assassin purred underneath a measure of imposed calm, "Do you know that?" Davinia, despite her reservations smiled wryly at him because his anger meant something despite itself, but the curve of her mouth made his eyebrows pull down completely over his eyes. "You'll forage around for every bit of treasure you can find but not this," he accused rather venomously.

"Those are health poultices, "Saf," Davinia replied somewhat chidingly but quietly.

"You don't want earring, you don't get earring. Very simple," he hissed with an amazing rapidity for someone with a locked jaw and an exponentially thicker accent than had been had a few seconds earlier. "Braska!" was hissed under his breath as he got up with the small webbing of jewels clutched in his palm and sheet ruffled primly out behind him.

"Zevran," she called to him sharply, and he turned to look at her rather distastefully. One of his braids had been partially undone in the span of time it'd taken him to get up, and it hung softly around his face, which - despite his gaze – Davinia found created a soft feeling in the pit of her stomach. "We leave at first light. You'll start off to Perivantium alone; I'm running to the Free Marches."

"Why?" he asked a clipedly, although civilly.

"It's the closest Alistair is going to be to Antiva in a predictable while."

"A simple message couldn't do? You _must_ go and see him?"

"No, but what I need to send him is urgent, and I want to get as close as I can to the Free Marches to do so. I'll still be able to meet you in Perivantium – just -" She gazed at him intently. "- just wait for me, alright?"

Zevran nodded tersely but obligingly all the same. "Where are we going after that?"

"The Anderfels."

 _Oh Grey Warden/_ , drifted up to them in the silence, _The Oath you've taken…_

The Warden looked at the Crow, and, in that moment, they understood a painful similarity. Davinia waited on Zevran. The Crow turned away.


	2. Zevran's Earring

_9:31 Dragon_

The Hero of Ferelden stood before a reverent sea of people. For a fleeting moment in her mind, all - in that familiar hall, now flooded by crowds - was silent. And then, as the faint echoes of sound swelled into a jubilant roar, she breathed in. It was the smell of Denerim – gutter, food, and hot earth - stuck perpetually to clothes and skin. She looked out and had to feel that her feet were planted solidly on the ground before the realization sunk into her. The realization that she'd saved all of these people started as a heaviness in her shoulders and diffused down her body with a warm thick slowness that was weighted neither pleasantly nor unpleasantly but was just the unfettered truth. She had told Arl Eamon and Wynne that she did not claim the title. When they said 'The Hero of Ferelden', it elicited a collective of faces that had each one pledged themselves and shed just as much blood, sweat, and tears as she. Looking out now, she did not see the history of their toils imprinted against her eyes; she saw Ferelden – no humans, no elves, no dwarves, no nobility, no commoners. She saw their tears of anguish mixed with joy, and she understood, in perspective, why this had become her title to bear in the singular.

A clear tear drop slid down her face to her cheek. She swiped at it, offended by its presence, with her gauntlet, which scratched her cheek, and sheer humanity crippled the flood gates. She cried with her people as one, and the sound of the crowd swelled as she wept openly. Her gauntlet, once poised in a wave, then clenched into a fist and raised over her head. They were victorious.

One of the guards behind her grasped her shaking shoulder concernedly.

"My Lady, if you'd rather postpone this until you're ready."

"No, Ser," she murmured to him over her shoulder and placed her steel gauntlet over his. "I am ready." She bowed her head then and whispered, "Thank you," and their moment, like all the others before it that had led her there, was over; she heard him jangle back into place behind her.

She stepped out of the hall into the sea, and she never came back to that pocket of time ever again.

The revelry lasted into the twilight – where Davinia would spend the last of the waning light in the alienage. She was welcomed when she approached the gates of the slums, rather than celebrating in the market place or returning to the Royal District. The desperation of a people enfolded her with gratitude.

" _The Hero of Ferelden is here!_ "

" _Did you hear?_ "

" _The Warden has not forgotten us._ "

Underneath the purple and pink sky, she watched the tree of the People come to life with fire flies, children dancing around it for her, and gut doubling laughter – much of the latter her own. The handle of a worn jug was clutched in her bare hand – her gauntlets had been tucked into one of the securing belts along the plackart of her armor – which made taking part in merriment all the easier. The children's dance had a simple choreography and seemed vaguely Dalish to the culturally unfamiliar eye, but for the most part, was merely haphazard - but the childlike joy, with which it was arduously preformed, did more to raise Davinia's spirits than the ale or the ongoing festivities.

* * *

"They have precious little to celebrate; most would never do something like this outside of holiday in their childhoods," a red-haired woman yelled over the sounds of revelry. She stood hip to hip with Davinia – although waist to hip - perhaps - was a more apt comparison.

Davinia's expression sobered down to her listening face. "It's good that they have this at least, then," she sympathized, but the words - to her - sounded perfunctory.

Shianni laughed bitterly and threw back a mouthful of ale. "Forgive me Warden, but 'at least they have a day where they can play like children and not be enslaved to their poverty' is a very twisted thought.'"

Davinia propped her elbow on the simple, low, wooden table behind her, which left her hip cocked out. She let the voices and song wash over her for a moment before answering Shianni – who was gazing down at her curiously.

"I grew up a child of fortune – not only was I sheltered from struggle, but I was born lucky that I would not be… trampled upon. I will misspeak always because I do not understand as you do, but I understand that this is wrong. I offer any comfort I can tonight because politically my influence is restricted to the military."

Shianni only nodded and smiled gratefully for her words. "Thank you, Warden—"

"–Davinia, please."

"Davinia, but you did not offend me."

"You are anguished for your people."

Shianni nodded. "But tonight we are happy." She nudged her chin toward the children. "They've been making this up and practicing ever since you came, but you didn't hear that from me."

"Could I dance with them?"

Shianni looked at her in surprise. "Yes, of course!"

"I wouldn't frighten them you think?" Davinia asked underneath a creased brow.

The elf next to her laughed. "No! Not at all."

Underneath the branches of the great tree, Davinia ended the day jingling boisterously next the children in a ring of joined hands. Stars dotted the oncoming night, and Denerim lit its lamps in the distance, so the alienage was framed by a golden gild for the time that the Warden was there. The world spun to the tune of laughter and clapping hands. The darkness blurred with light, stars, and faces. She closed her eyes, and she could see certain ones of the latter caught behind her lids. She breathed in, and although the air wasn't fresh, it was alive, and that was enough for Davinia.

That night she returned to the Royal Palace drunk but no less light of purse than she had been at the start of the day, despite ambling through Denerim on foot. She was accosted - not by bandits - but by people instead – who wished to bask in her presence, know her, or else offer her gratitude. It had not been easy to part though the crowd of them, but she did so with dignity as she'd been taught in Highever in the wax of her youth.

The stone walls of the Royal Palace were a seal to the world as they stood solemn, dark, and quiet immutably. They were also poignant with Alistair's presence, and it was all too easy for the desire to seek him out to beckon from low lit corridors and snag her on its enticing finger tips. They tugged her deep into the halls. In the quiet of the evening, her plated feet echoed pleasantly on the stone, if loudly. She purposely avoided the soft padding of the cerulean and gold laced carpeting to that end, but in order to lose some of the unnecessary clatter she fumbled her gauntlets off of her belt and left them on an arbitrary bench.

"Be good," she whispered loudly to them and set off again.

Alistair's apartments were more populated than the great hall. It seemed that it was possible to fit more people here because the ceilings soared, like Orzammar's - but into grand buttresses decored by old seals of Ferelden orders captured on looming flags instead of stone. It was, however, no less cavernous. Davinia's large green eyes grew somehow larger when they cast to the ceiling, and she whistled on spying the handsome Theirin heraldry on a heavy, velvety, black flag in centre, then again for good measure because the sound pinged brightly off of the guards' armor.

Nobody turned her way as she made her way down to Alistair's sleeping quarters in gleaming silverite and red steel mismatched together - a combination that had certainly become a new style already. Alistair was not to be found in his chambers - informed the guards posted outside of the solid ironbark doors – but where he was to be found, in court, he was dressed with meticulously coordinated grandeur, although not in armor. He had a novel complete set that was identical to the one Cailen had once worn many times and one last at Ostagar, but he was still in his court garb, which had been made specially for him by nimble fingers as soon as he had been first announced King of Ferelden and had been efficiently finished by the time of his coronation. Politics had been kept on hold for as long as they could, and a day's rest would be detrimental to Ferelden's already rent state. She might have gone to him still, despite this, had she any idea of his whereabouts because she felt that the King of Ferelden still needed his hero.

Instead she was forced to clank back to the only place she could bring herself to ask direction for when a guard asked her if she was lost.

"I'm searching–" She hiccupped and politely brought her fingers to her lips. She shook her head at the waiting guard. "Beg pardon. Where is the king?"

"He is entertaining court, Commander."

"Is it very late?"  
"Yes, Commander."

Davinia had plenty of lip to bite in worry, and she did so then.

"If you could just tell whomever it concerns that His Majesty had promised the Warden-Commander of Ferelden an audience earlier, but it is not of pressing priority."

"Yes, Commander."

"Thank you," she said, "Now, Ser, where would my rooms be? I was never shown them."

"Oh, right this way, Commander." He gestured in a vague direction. "Can I ask what it's like being a Grey Warden?"

Davinia smiled dryly, "Grueling, but rewarding in its own way if you're one for sacrifice," she began to speak.

When they'd reached the doors to her room, she'd had another story under her belt as she'd taken the guard's name as a potentially interested recruit. That journey ended as he began to tell her: "And, Commander? Your eh—friend has been inquiring when you would get in, I was told. He was eventually directed to your chambers to wait."

Davinia arched her eyebrows at him. "That's a rather broad term, 'friend,'" she remarked, then pushed both very solid doors open into a wide ironbark frame and was presented with a rather lavish picture of Zevran lounging on a double bed in her undertunic, which was much too big for him but was compensatorily bunched - rather suggestively - to his mid thighs. Her gauntlets were neatly set in front of his chest pressed into the overstuffed mattress. His feet twirled elegantly in the air.

"You should really watch where you put these, My Warden. Come to bed?" If Zevran's legs could speak, then they would be lewdly eloquent because the way that one kicked back right before he stretched the full length of his body spun an entire story.

Davinia's eyes could not get wider if someone punched her at that moment for no particular reason. Dark red diffused up her neck to the apples of her cheeks, which was accented beautifully by the guard's low whistle behind her and Zevran's spreading smirk - which had placed the last nail in her coffin as far as the guard's conclusions were concerned.

"I don't judge, Commander. Cousin ran off with an elf in my own family. Goodnight," he said curtly, and then the doors boomed shut before she could think about turning around to say anything to the unwitting man.

"That's mine!" Davinia blurted squeakily at the luscious creature in lieu.

"How keen you are tonight, My Warden," he purred and stretched so luxuriatingly towards the edge of Davinia's bedspread that he began to drip off of it.

"You went through my stuff!" she said again in a high falsetto that seemed to be stuck.

"Give me some credit, Warden," Zevran continued to purr throatily as he draped his arm against the corner of the bed, so he could perch his chin on it. "I found it wrapped up in my bedroll when I went to dispose of the thing at the market earlier. I was just – _mmm_ – tidying up, you might say."

Davinia scrunched up her face. "It's probably dirty too then! Take it off now, before I take it off of you!"

" _Ohoho_ ," Zevran clucked, "Now, that does sound like an exciting game. What do I get if I win?" Zevran's leer was framed by one beautiful hand slid underneath his chin.

"You get to be as dirty as my unmentionables; now, take it off!" Davinia finally exclaimed exasperatedly, then quickly followed her words by turning to the wall.

Zevran chuckled warmly and lifted the, indeed slightly off-color, tunic over his head by struggling to his knees. "Why are you looking at the wall, Warden?" Zevran asked mildly as he readjusted the better fitted night clothes that the removal had ruffled.

"I'm not falling for that," Davinia said a little too loudly for the silence surrounding them.

" _Shhh_ ," Zevran hushed her gently, "Fear not for your sensibilities; I am clothed, on my honor."

Davinia peeked at him warily over her shoulder, and he laughed at the distress obvious on her face.

"Where did you get those so quickly?" she asked stupidly as she stared confoundedly at the crisp white linen.

"Old assassin's secret." He said the words through a rather uncharacteristic grin that softened rather than sharpened his features. It could have been his loose hair, or the lighting, or a particularly good mood – but its warmth did not waver.

Davinia still gazed at the clothing with wide eyes for a lingering moment more, then flicked her eyes back onto Zevran, before she spoke. "You're lying."

"I had them on the entire time."

"I knew it," she whispered loudly. "Not really, but I had faith in you, Zevran." Her eyes were still wide in a scandalized way, but she nodded to herself and turned away from the wall. "So you aren't here to er—offend my sensibilities?"

Zevran's eyebrows arched. "I could do a great deal of offending if you'd like, but no, alas." He settled back onto his stomach. "I came to return your things." Zevran gestured to the gleaming gauntlets – now draped crassly with the undertunic – still sitting on the bed.

Davinia paced a few steps toward them. She'd fixed her gauntlets with a grim stare. "I put those down quite recently."

"Some hours ago, yes," Zevran explained patiently and carefully stretched out one side of his body, "When I saw them, I knew you'd returned."

"The guard said you'd been asking after me for a while."

"As he should have; I've been asking far more than is fashionable."

Davinia clunked forward, then groaned and unwisely threw herself down onto her ass in front of the fire; it sounded a bit like a kitchen pantry turning on its side. "Well, if what you have to say is so urgent, then you could at least help me out of my boots; I'm too heavily armed and knackered for this."

Davinia stuck a leg out and waved the heel of her boot in front of Zevran's face. He wrinkled his nose but graciously swept her things behind him and slid forward on his stomach to grasp the foot of her boot, then he pulled it until it came free.

"I can't decide what I love more: undressing you or the smell of Denerim refuse."

"I was in the alienage." Davinia switched out her feet, and he caught her heavily in one hand.

"I can tell."

"Anyway," Davinia continued matter-of-factly once she'd dropped her socked feet back down to the floor and began unbuckling her arms with some clatter, "What did you want so urgently? Changing your plans? Need me to do something for you?"

Zevran cocked his head. "I—no. I am staying; nothing's changed."

"Well, what can I do for you, Zevran?" she asked amicably. Her eyes flicked up to him over a vague smile as she busied herself with her pauldron.

"Is it that unimaginable that I'd seek out your company without an ulterior motive?"

Davinia smiled wryly at him. The uncomfortably hot chainmail pauldron made a hair-raising crashing noise when Davinia discarded it carelessly onto the rest of the silverite pieces.

"Oh, I wouldn't expect you to have one, but I wouldn't be surprised if you did. Like I said, Zevran, I have faith in you. Don't betray it."

Davinia shucked off the last of her armor down to her doublet and pants and heaved herself to her lead feet. She looked down at Zevran, and the alcohol smiled as she ruffled his hair with a hand. Davinia hummed then let her hand fall heavily to her side, but even after she'd gone, her touch lingered in nerveless tresses as a sort of phantom wind or gentle pressure upon the scalp.

"You have done enough for me, Warden."

He sounded subdued as he gazed up at her tall shapely silhouette. Davinia's face was in shadow, and Zevran's gleamed brightly in the light along with his warm eyes. The lucid earnestness in the liquid amber of his irises transfixed her in puzzlement, and so they stared at each other for a while. Davinia eventually turned her face away when she couldn't discern clarity in the drink. A furrow was on her brow. "You've interesting eyes, Zevran." she sighed, then staggered heavily into a chair facing the fire but parallel to the bed – where Zevran lay. Her body slumped down the high back wearily. "I apologize. I'm distracting from your matters. You wished to tell me something."

"I—" Zevran glanced surreptitiously to her gauntlets laying at his side. When a small spark flared against the metal in the firelight, he swallowed against the gentle twist it made of his stomach. "Nothing more than a desire to speak to a fearless, fierce, and altogether lovely woman, while basking in the glory of a hard won victory," he lavished. Then he reached over to the gauntlets and scooped up the little spark – where it was extinguished in a fist against his chest for ten years. "Have I ever told you the story of Dolfito?"

She turned her head to him. Her face was split by darkness, and each frazzled hair on her on her half-silhouetted head stood out – but it was enough to see her thrown expression. "'Dolfe-eto?'"

Zevran smiled at her amusedly. "Yes. Dolfito."

"Should I know of this Dolfeeto?"

"No, but he might be highly offended that you haven't – that is had he still been alive."

Davinia raised an eyebrow into her hairline, and the hair crusted to her head by sweat rose with it. "Did you kill Dolfeeto?"

Zevran laughed quietly. "Oh, but had I! I would not be in this whole nasty business with the Crows, but no, unfortunately. This was a long time ago - one of these things that has turned from history to legend." Zevran punctuated his alluring hook with a cough of a laugh. "Had it ever been true in the first place that is."

She grinned at him; it was creased tiredly around the edges but no less sincere. "I do love stories, and I've grown very tired of this one making tell right now. Perhaps you've heard it? Does the name…" She paused to clear her throat to gain a grandiloquent flourish to her already regal voice. "… _Davinia_ –" She hiccupped in a very untimely manner, "Oh, blast it! –Sound a familiar bark to you?"

"Vaguely."

A muffled _boof_ from outside filled the space between Davinia's question and Zevran's answer and quirked another smile to his lips because it was unmistakably Davinia's mabari's identifier.

"There's a familiar bark now. They had better not be mishandling my dog. 'Best friend' or not, I'll have Alistair's bollocks for that," she mused worriedly before returning to the topic at hand. "Shame though. It's a very good story, I'm told, but a very arduous one for me to listen to just now. And in that order, we come to you!" She grinned her charming crooked grin and straightened up in the seat and looked at Zevran expectantly.

He cleared his throat and mirrored her upright sitting position. "Well, let us see—Dolfito was the son of one of the arbitrary kings of the time. Antiva was still very much the political mess it was then, as it is now, and still very much run by the ignoble House of Crows. Dolfito, growing up, knew that his family held very little actual power, but being a fairly clever child - as one is when they live in constant fear of assassination - he knew how necessary the Crows were. When he grew up and understood some of the finer details of Antivan politics, he thought he might dismantle the system – not by seeking to destroy the Crows by force - but by winning the passionate hearts of the people by claiming conquests for the country in the royal family's and Andraste's name. Such would stake Antiva as a strong country to the rest of the world and the power of the royal family to it."

"Did he succeed?" Davinia asked coyly – to which Zevran laughed dryly.

"No, as I would not have been in such a lucrative employ otherwise, but he tried." Zevran sighed with faux lament and shrugged up to his ears with his palms plateaued to the ceiling. "Dolfito thought to lead an Exalted March of his own into the Tevinter Imperium, but to do this, he would need military prowess. This was something that the royal families did not have. The Crows' presence eliminated any need for a specially trained royal army, and they coveted many techniques to themselves, as jealously as a father his daughter's honor. So, to claim this glory, he had to go to the Crows for help," Zevran murmured darkly and punctuated the statement with a sharp smile.

He had a melodic voice, and the lilting phrases ebbed and flowed beautifully to his sultry undertones. It lulled Davinia and glazed her over on the expressiveness of his eyes, so she could easily pretend she was in Antiva waiting to watch Dolfito's downfall, especially if she queued in on specific sensories in the warm room. The heat of the fire could have been from the hot sun. Her sweat could have been condensation from a breath of humidity. The lingering of the alienage in her nostrils: the place where Zevran had grown up; even though he hadn't mentioned anything of the slums or the brothels she still clung to it, as it was the only piece of his homeland he'd painted for her through his words before.

"Dolfito, although ambitious, was still very clever. He knew the implications this would have for the Crows in the long term and so chose one of their most ambitious _Patróns_ present his deal to. Arainai was seduced by his words that painted gold and glory and gave him the wealth and assassins he needed. And with the Crows backing him, he succeeded." Satisfied, Zevran rolled out his shoulders smugly.

"But—you said he failed."

"He did, but not quite yet," Zevran foreshadowed, then continued, "He won victory after victory, and things grew more stable in his homeland. The Crows, although they made up the force of his armies, had a visible royal leader. With the Guild pouring men and money into a royal led endeavor, the monarchy started to absorb the Crows almost seamlessly. And Dolfito pushed harder and harder. He was tireless. Ruthless. Flashing eyes full of Andraste's fire and tempered into splendor on the battlefield.

But not everyone was unprivvy to his schemes, although those who were turned a blind eye because it was profitable for them, no? Well, except for the other Crow _Patróns_ and the numerous assassins Arainai took in at an astounding rate. It being Antiva, most everyone important had some connection enough to skip an official draft, should one have been instituted, so more bodies were brought in through the slave market, which worked out poorly for the enslaved, as you can imagine. A young Crow, by the name of Saffron, also saw opportunity. Embittered by the impoverishment that had led to her slavery the other _Patróns_ \- who were disgusted with Arainai's blind insolence – seized on this and raised her with the sole purpose of killing Dolfito _and_ Aranai, which they promised would give her immeasurable power that she couldn't gain elsewhere; 'you'd be hunted down and killed, surely, if you ran away,' they said to her, 'and where would you ever hope to go otherwise?'

According to their plan, she bid to join the magnificent Prince Dolfito's personal ranks and spectacularly bested her fellow assassins in fierce competition for such a coveted job. Through a mere year of recruitment, she'd already ranked high in his army and grew to be especially favored over his other advisors. Her word he drank as wine from her golden lips and spared no expense she bid him spend, whether through word or the unspoken persuasions of her body's silent language. Once a grubby elven girl, now a gleaming and deadly goddess of the field tamed by his hand, and this suited her for a while; she tarried in the trappings.

Eventually, between victory after victory Dolfito threw out his shoulder, and he could no longer bear the weight of his armor. When he called out for help from the beautiful Crow he so trusted, she seized this opportunity to drive the pommels of her daggers into his pauldrons, which wounded him further and allowed her to easily incapacitate him. Then…" Zevran leaned forward dramatically. "… She rent one of her blades into a chink opened in his breast plate. Tore it off and plunged the other straight through the chainmail into his heart. Thus, the assassins scattered without command, and the Crows rescinded Aranai's claim to his house in the Antivan way. Saffron was bloodthirsty enough that no one sought to challenge her promised boon, after a few more well-placed daggers. Her mission was finally complete. She lived out her days in riches – Dolfito lived his in the dirt or the belly of some filthy carrion bird. Happily ever after, as they say," Zevran chimed brightly.

Davinia whistled lowly. "But that didn't happen, right?"

Zevran shrugged conspiratorially. "Who knows? There's no name to the king, as fleeting as they are in Antiva, and there have been a great many Dolfitos born over the years, whether it's due solely to his legend or just a purely common name, I cannot say. And the Grandmaster of House Arainai, of course, has always been Arainai. The first name varies story to story, depending on the version, so it's hard to pin down which one it could've been. And Antiva was pushing back Teviniter quite often; that's how the Crows became so fearsome. It is lost to the stories." He then winked and broke the golden thread he'd spun, "But yes, I personally believe it is a fairy tale. The full version is a little too fantastic, should I sit here and tell it to you."

Davinia perked. "Full version?"

"Yes, there's a love story, and a tragedy, and all that; it's really quite morbid. Traditionally, you can fill in the naughty bits with whatever amuses you, depending on the teller, but we'd be sitting here for quite a while if it were up to me," he intoned with an air of suggestion.

"Then I take it that you're fond of this story?" Davinia asked him as she lounged back into her chair.

"Eh—I don't have much of a fondness for moral tales."

"What was the moral behind all of that? Avarice is the downfall of man?"

"A good guess, but Saffron was also greedy."

"I don't think not wanting to be a slave is greedy." Davinia frowned.

"Wanting your family's safety as well as your own freedom isn't necessarily greedy either. Dolfito might have been of better means, but he lived under threat for his life if he was found disposable."

" _Touché_ ," Davinia said dryly.

"The moral is from a derived fish-wives' saying, which goes: 'Don't overburden your shoulders', which is not understood to be ambition but being made a mule to demand. If he hadn't been so pressed to receive approval from the people calling him a hero, he wouldn't have been careless enough to let Saffron get an opportunity to kill him, which derives yet another fish-wives' saying that goes: 'Don't leave your heart unguarded.'"

"I would've thought it was a cautionary tale to Crow recruits."

"It is indeed that too," Zevran chuckled. "Its telling is banned in training, actually. Most Crows regard it as drivel once they become fledged assassins; killing the master of your House is unthought of for many reasons."

"I'm glad you're staying, Zevran."

Zevran's eyes did that curious thing where they softened again. "I am glad I am too, Warden. Somebody has to keep you out of trouble, lest the guards start giving you quests to single-handedly make up Alistair's detail because you're more capable than them."

Davinia laughed dryly. "Don't joke. That is something I will have to do when I take control of Amaranthine's forces, if he falls into need; Highever is not able to assist right now, and Gwaren is indisposed." Davinia's lips pressed together embitteredly.

" _Ah-h_ , politics. They never end. I'd drink to that had I something to drink with."

"I actually wouldn't mind sipping something else with you; one has to show restraint for the masses."

"My Dear Warden, you've already outdrank me."

"I said ' _sip_ ' – not 'drink under the table.' Besides, we have access to the King's royal stores; don't let me pass this opportunity up to exercise a guilty pleasure."

"Drinking?"

Davinia snorted. "You Fool Antivan; no, drinking from the King's stores. Anora had exquisite taste."

"Then I take it you come here often?" Zevran quipped at her behind a customary lusty smile.

"My father was considered second to the king, so yes?" Davinia answered with a question in her tone.

Zevran laughed, despite himself, in a dreadfully ungraceful way that was so counter-intuitive to the deliberate ease of his existence. "Then I will have to see what I can scrounge up to meet your exquisite tastes," Zevran said with a half bow from the bed, then slid gracefully off of the coverlette. The jaunty sway in his hips was ever the same, ever intuitive to the intricacies of his normal movement as he went to the door. He was never off-balance for long.

He was just in reach of the door handle when Davinia called out to him: "What about Saffron?" Zevran turned to her over his shoulder.

"What about her?"

"Wouldn't her surname have broke the tradition of Arainais?"

"It's a fairytale," Zevran began to sigh, but she cut him off on the heel of his words before he could finish.

"Humor me, please."

"It's not uncommon for assassins to take the name of the house they serve, as they usually have no title to speak of when they are taken in. My own surname is Arainai, in fact."

"Zevran Arainai?" she mulled experimentally. Her accent was weak but well cultivated.

"Yes. It is at least what I used to sign on things."

"I like it. It has a rich heaviness to it."

"And rolls right off of the tongue!" Zevran joked. The bright tone pealed again in his voice.

"Alright, Saf, go get those drinks before this topic veers off onto the topic of tongues."

"'Saf?'" Zevran asked. His inflection was a touch sharp juxtaposed to his bemused tone.

"Like Saffron." Davinia shrugged as she looked at him lingering by the door. "It sounds much like your own name."

"Like a nickname?" Zevran compelled her to explain, but his quizzical tone now matched his hesitant inflections.

"Sure." She shrugged. "If you don't like it, then—"

"—No! No. I like it just fine. I've never really been given one before."

"What about 'Zev'?"

"What about it?"

"You said your friends called you that."

"Oh—yes, that."

Davinia smiled knowingly at Zevran, and he - surprised at her ability to read the things he hadn't said - smirked earnestly at her. He somehow innately knew she understood.

"I should get those drinks before my tongue wriggles off to places."

Davinia wrinkled her nose immediately. "Ew."

Zevran winked saucily and slipped out of the door.

When the days had been longer and hotter, one of Zevran's many indulgences had been wine and company. But those days were far away from his honored invitation in tall, proud, stone-browed Denerim Palace and Ferelden's always chill air. And Davinia very far from Rinna, therefore, he had always had his past conversations with his most treasured companion in sober asides whenever she'd had them make camp just off of the King's Highway. When there was drink to be had, her first thoughts were with Alistair or Morrigan – once even Wynne. Now she chose him. He knew it wouldn't be as raucous, like with Alistair – full of heart and humor, a brightness in the Blight that held fast to each other – or as coaxing, as with Morrigan – where Davinia burbled fluidly into the witch's silent spaces until they both let it envelop them. They fell somewhere in between.

Zevran's steps were velveted by the carpet and left only the passage of wind and fresh linen in his wake. The occasional curiosity of a guard was all that he roused, and it was done so in silence. Oil lamps bathed his way in pools of light, and where one's jurisdiction ended, another's began. But the castle had become less grandiose in splendor and fell into shadow - its hushed evening garb.

Zevran mapped the immense castle layout with his eyes, and memory penned in the gaps, so he might descry a place where the wine cellar could lay. He headed down a northern corridor – where sound vanished less readily. There, he came upon a guardsman posted at the entrance to the apartments being accosted by a boyish voice that hitched upwardly with glibness at the end of wry sentences.

"You might be able to function well after battling the Archdemon, Uncle, but, _Maker_ , that was hard."

Davinia, meanwhile sunk beneath soapy water. It was a modern marvel to have such a luxury as a wooden tub close to the fire. The linen lining brushed her skin with a lover's tenderness, and she groaned. Her arm shuddered with a hesitant ache to move beneath the water, which caused it to ripple gently at the surface, but she instead held her body still and limp in suspension and washed away everything that had ever happened with every breath.

It was in this way that the spirit lands stole one away in slumber. Although one – whose blood magic did not touch – did not encounter spirits in true form and indeed did not likely have dreams touched by them directly, it was to be wondered if they did not cleanse those of pure intention and heavy heart by their altruism alone. Stolen off to the Fade was how Zevran found her sprawled bonelessly underneath the goosedown covers when he returned with an agonizingly chosen, but artistically simple, bottle of wine. He didn't mind because he didn't think that she'd have nightmares tonight. And, indeed, she slept soundly.


End file.
